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Definition of a drawing. When does a drawing become a painting?
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Posted
There are sending in days for a couple of drawing exhibitions, including the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA), coming up and neither has a clear definition of what types of media (or mixed media?) would be acceptable.
I'm not talking about the obvious here - pencil drawings, pen and ink and charcoal on its own are obviously drawings. But what about pastels (soft/chalk/oil), Inktense sticks and pencils, Tombow pens and pastel pencils?
It gets even more complicated when drawing mediums are combined with paint like the wonderful pastel and charcoal over acrylic pieces demonstrated by Soraya French and Keith Bennett in the new July issue of The Artist. Are they drawings or paintings?
I'm struggling to get my head around where the dividing line is - so I'd be really interested to know your thoughts.
Posted
Perhaps think dry medium, as opposed to anything mixed with a liquid such as water or turps ets… That’s how I tend to deal with this issue, but I could be wrong! Water soluble pencils as an example would then presumably not come under drawing.
It’s a grey area and open to individual interpretation!
For the Birmingham exhibition, I think it would be wise to ring and check…
Posted
What a great question Bobbie. I tend to think of a drawing as something made with lines, the nature of the piece rather than the medium. I would include any media even oil paint if you put it in a bottle with a fine nib and used it like a pen. I would describe soft pastels as paintings if they look like paintings and drawings if they look like drawings. I agree it is hard to decide with some pieces. I'm not sure there is a dividing line, it's more like a blurry transition.
Posted
A good question Bobby and one I would like explained, I get very confused when a piece of artwork is described as a drawing and looks like a painting. I know that we all accept the terminology that is currently in vogue and as we know word have changed meaning or now have several meanings over the years certainly within the last fifty or so years.
I decided to google what is a drawing,see the attached screenshot, but I suspect it has a slightly different meaning in different countries.
Posted
Anyone any wiser?
I sort of am - lines; ok, pencils, pens, do make lines. So do coloured pencils, chalks - up to a point, anyway. I think though that it'd be well to contact anyone organizing exhibitions and inviting contributions to say what THEY mean by these terms; because we all have our own ideas. Well, that's what Alan said at the start, basically, so I claim no points for originality. It'd be annoying to submit a work and then find that someone else's definition rules it out of consideration, though.
The best paintings for me tend to be those in which the brush has 'drawn' an image - rather than colouring in a careful series of lines: we know what we mean by drawing in paint, if we've ever used a brush to create a shape; so the distinction is pretty well artificial, really. Of interest, all the same.
Posted
Normally, so do I - though I've taken to using a charcoal pencil, then going over the lines with a damp brush - seals them pretty well, but I wouldn't want to make such a drawing too detailed. There was a book, or pamphlet perhaps - whose author might have been R O Dunlop or John Mills: now there's a choice for you - memory goes back a long way, but not always accurately. Anyway, in it he/whoever wrote about preliminary drawing for paintings, but said "however, the sounder and stronger course is to go straight in with the brush": while I wouldn't be quite so prescriptive about it, I generally agree with that.... but anyway: OK, that's what you've done, drawn with the brush - and if you didn't add any colour but left it to stand as it is, because you rather like it like that, is that a painting, or a drawing? Eh? Answer me that! Because I'm blowed if I can answer it myself.
I've seen that described as "brush drawing", just to complicate things nicely.
Posted
This is not a question that can be answered, except by those few people laying out the rules for a particular competition. There's no general consensus.
The Tate's explanation, as supplied by Jenny, seems to cover just about everything. It certainly covers what I do, whatever medium I try. When I make pictures I think of them as drawings, some of which happen to be coloured with a variety of mediums.
Here's a quote from The Toulouse Lautrec Foundation website...
'Toulous-Lautrec's skilled depiction of people relied on his painterly style which is highly linear and gives great emphasis to contour. He often applied the paint in long, thin brushstrokes which often leave much of the board on which they are painted showing through. Many of his works may best be described as drawings in coloured paint.'
The 'drawing' effect is clearly present in many artists work, certainly many featured in Dixie's inspiration thread. At the start of this thread, Bobbie asked where's the dividing line between drawing and painting. I don't think there IS one. For me, at least, art IS drawing.
When it comes to real life, and you want to enter Fred Blog's drawing competition, Fred Blog has to state clearly what HE means by drawing. This has been said several times already, I'm just ringing the same bell.
Posted
Well I’ve read this through twice and it made my head hurt! I start an oil painting with drawing the subject with brush and a light mix of paint and medium, so am I drawing or painting at that stage? I’m inclined to accept Alan’s view that drawing involves dry media, but then what about drawing with a pen!?
Good subject for discussion. Personally I found the Tate description not entirely helpful but perhaps that’s the nature of the beast, and as has been said, one needs to check with the exhibiting folk what they want. You’ll probably find they have ten pages of detail to wade through.
I guess the fact that artists now use so many options of mixed media, and combinations of wet and dry, makes this more difficult to define.
Let us know Bobbie how you get on!